Time and Life

Hush of silence enshrouding a modest room

With fair curtains drawn,

Simple lights switched on

Unwillingly illumine a clock

Hanging on a wall, Once badly broken

Nevertheless somehow working

To break the ice

By its faint ticking beats.

Straight beneath it someone bed-ridden

With closed eyes,

Agitating fingers and

Frequent deep breaths,

Meditating over the past

Cudgelling the brains.

Reopening many old sores

And a few palmy days

Of an onerous life

Torn up by rents of poverty

And

Stitched up by thread of survival

Which was be-all and end-all.

Childhood of scarcity

Youth of hardships

Oldness of insalubrity

With rare commas of joy

And ubiquitous full-stops of grief

Composed the chapter of life,

A moving laborious life

Which at present

Had taken a halt

And parked itself at a place

Where tears and smiles

Pain and pleasure,

Despair and hope,

Melancholy and gaiety

Clamour and silence

Solitude and companionship

Every moment of life is liked,

Held precious and invaluable.

Yet a piquant feeling

Of inactivity and vapidity

Fidgets, itches and incites a wish-

Wish to get up

Leave the bed

To be ambulant,

Revitalize the nerves

For breaking again

Arduous rocks of life.

But a fragile heart

With irregular pulses,

Eyes with feeble sight

And

Body with flaccid muscles

Clip the wings of this wish,

Cramp the style

And leave “compromise”

The only option.

The beats of a broken clock

The pulses of a fragile heart,

Unfold nonchalance of fugitive time

Reveal inequity of limited life.

World: an intricate oddity per se

Time and life its crossword

Man, its zealous solver,

Before conjuring any solution

Turns unqualified,

And dropped out!

Sense of nostalgia enveloping thoughts

His lips seem to whisper-

Afsoos Duniya Kahsina Lug Samsaar Sethi....

(I penned down this free-verse when my grandpa was very unwell and passing through the final stage of his life. It captures the emotional and existential crisis experienced during that painful phase. The sense of belonging and the sense of loss dominated. It still does since my grandparents were close to me than my parents).